Mass Effect: The Cycle of Change
by A-01
Summary: The Reaper war is long over, Shepard is now a timeless being guiding life in the galaxy. A task not for a mortal man. An existence that would break his soul. What if he could change his situation? And all that it would take was plunging himself back into the middle of the war when hope seemed pointless.


**Authors note/introduction:  
Hi there everyone! : )  
I recently started a playthrough of ME1, excited that hopefully there will be backward compatibility for 2 and 3 soon as well, and it got my creative juices flowing.  
Retrospectively, I have decided that I actually did like the general premise of the different endings for ME3, the minor details of course could've been better…  
But anyway, I was inspired to find a different ending anyway.  
So I trawled through the fics on here, and couldn't find any that really filled what I wanted.  
So of course, I have had to write it myself.  
Some of you may be able to guess where this is going.**

 **Buuut! I need feedback on an important plot point that I am not settled on.  
Who will Shepards romantic interest be?  
Has to be a MShep Straight pairing, as a straight guy I would have trouble being able to properly write a gay pairing.  
Does not have to be a primary character either.  
You will notice that I seem to be leaning toward Tali in this chap though.**

 **But review, make your ideas known, and I will consider them! : )**

 **Happy reading everyone!**

 **Mass Effect** **  
** **The Cycle of Change**

 **Chapter 1  
The Ebb of Time**

 **Location: Within the Citadel System (Earth orbit) and all Reaper ships.  
Date: May 30, 2276**

"The man I once was."

Was it a thought?  
A statement out loud?

How would he define such a thing in his current state?

Currently, his conscious focus was only on his plane of existence as his human mentality was able to comprehend. He was standing within an endless white space where his thoughts and memories were projected before him within this comprehension of physical space.

But he was distinctly aware that this was not a real physical space. It was a mental interpretation of code to keep his sanity in check. To allow him to remain as Human as he could free from suffering.

It was a construct made with the best intentions, partly designed in functionality by both the original Catalyst - the intelligence – and himself as he had taken the spot to naturally become his.

Shepard didn't think that he transformed into this immortal artificial consciousness as smoothly as was intended, or as perfectly as would be logically assumed by the Intelligence.

The irony being that simple oversight highlighted the Intelligence's perspective about Synthetics and Organics being unable to understand one another.

But, what of the Geth?  
He, in his mortal form, had forged peace between the Quarians and the Geth.

Life was ever evolving, ever exceeding what you could expect.  
Perhaps the ability of Organics to create Synthetics was likewise evolved since the creation of the Reapers.

A chime sounded.  
He knew that there was no chime.  
It was a translation of a pure code signal into sound by his subroutines to suit his existence. To make him feel mortal and organic once more.

The moment that he turned his mind to the signal it expanded. He was suddenly aware of so much more. His cognitive ability soared across the galaxy, from Reaper to Reaper.

He was everywhere at once, immortal, yet his soul still felt perfectly mortal.

Having opened his mind back up to the reality of his existence, he pried into the signal.  
A packet of data from Rannoch.

It was one amongst many millions of data packets he received every minute from various sources all over the galaxy, singled out from keywords for his direct attention. They came from Humans, Turians, Salarians, Asari, Krogan, Drell and even Batarians. Requests for help with criminals, small conflicts, stranded craft or natural disasters.

Shepards primary mind rarely paid attention to them. Instead, he'd devoted a subroutine version of himself to the task. A program designed to think like him to act as he would act.  
So all issues were answered with his assistance, in Reaper form.

Only ninety years earlier the Reapers were a galaxy wide symbol of destruction and the end of all things.  
Now, the Reapers were all considered to be Shepard, and he was revered as a legend verging on a god.  
Someone who had stopped the greatest threat to ever exist within the Milky Way Galaxy by ascending to immortality.  
Taking command of the unstoppable power that had eradicated so many to become a tool of peace.

He certainly didn't think of himself as a god.  
He was timeless, he was all powerful, he could breathe life into worlds, he could decide when life needed help and when it did not.

Even the Asari, so old in their organic forms, but now young compared to his collective knowledge of the history of the Milky Way, they seemed so young, so childish. Sometimes they had to stumble on their own to learn.

But most of all, he was a very mortal feeling man trapped within timelessness. Existence was a torment, but he had to see to the peace that trillions of lives had died dreaming of across millions of years.  
That all of the lives of his allies who had died, sacrificing themselves to achieve this peace.

The momentary focus on his heart ache – despite his lack of a physical heart – shifted back to the data packet from Rannoch.

John Shepard – Herald of Galactic Peace –

' _The title that the Quarians and Geth had placed on me,'_ He instantly rectified the title.

It is with great regret that I must inform you that the former Tali Zorah Vas Normandy, the single most accomplished Quarian, having led us back to peace with the Geth on Rannoch, has passed away peacefully in her sleep.  
Her diary, which she constantly kept with her, had a message specifically asking for you to be the first to be informed.  
She asked for you to never be saddened by her passing. That she lived a full life filled with more dreams than she ever imagined as a child because of your actions and sacrifices.  
She and us know that as a full-fledged AI, from an Organic mind no less, you must feel bonds and connections, and as difficult as it will be, she wishes for you to seek out bonds in your existence, to feel love timelessly rather than loneliness and regret.

The Quarian and Geth people will always be your caring and humble friends, whenever you should want or need us.

-With the greatest regrets and humility

\- Temporary Rannoch high councillor – Yeil Xen Vas Rannoch

He didn't need to read the words, as the message was pure data beneath the aesthetic level of text. But he applied his runtimes to visually translate the software image and reading it in as close to a natural way as possible.

John knew that there was no possible way that his first absorption of the data to be incorrect. But the startling and painful message contained within deserved his utmost attention.

Someone who had commanded a spectacular amount of respect, care and love in his heart and mind deserved his full attention.

All other acts of assistance could wait. The Galaxy had gotten along well enough before the arrival of the Reapers, it could manage a couple of days without his peaceful guidance of life.

He turned his attention to the stars, to the location of Rannoch amongst the stars.  
This translated as each and every Reaper abandoning their tasks and heading to exactly the same coordinates.

All eighteen thousand of them leapt into the air from their place on various planets, asteroids, mass relays, and cities and sped toward Rannoch.

He could no longer continue one with his tasks as all those who he loved died.  
Only Liara was left, and he was comforted to know that he wouldn't be confronted with her passing for at least another eight hundred years.

But as each and every one of his friends – his loved ones – passed, he mourned silently within, and continued on with his tasks.

He could not take it anymore.

If the least he could do were to be at Rannoch in tribute, leaving the Galaxy to manage itself for but a couple of days, then he would happily do that.

 **Location: Presidium water reservoirs, Citadel, Earth Geosynchronous orbit.**

Liara's vibrant blue eyes twinkled with a mixture of love and sadness as from her seated position she watched a newsfeed being projected on the wall across from her, next to the elevator which led to the Citadel Tower.

Her current workplace, as it had been for the past forty years.

Breaking news reports had begun streaming in, in fear of a new war on the horizon, concerned that John Shepard was no longer fully shepherding the Reapers, as the aforementioned vessels all sped off toward their closest relays, abandoning any tasks that they had been performing to assist life in the galaxy.

She, like Tali, had come to be the High Councillor of her own governance as well.  
Tali had risen to the position of leading her people, while she had risen to leading the new council structure under the urging of Shepard himself.

Her day had comprised of dealing with and an endless list of bureaucratic issues that were really of no consequence to life anywhere.  
But they were the minor points to governing that gave the people satisfaction with their leader.

By now, people had stopped all of their enjoyment around the presidium and had abandoned their places of viewing and work to gather around the various holo feeds.

Fear was very obviously on the faces of most of the Asari and some of the older Humans and Turians present.  
All those who had clearly lived through the Reaper war.

She couldn't fault that fear. She had felt the very same terror strike through her heart at the first report through her omni-tool of the Reaper once known as Harbinger having abandoned its almost always silent vigil of the Citadel and speeding toward the Mass Relay.

But not long after the seemingly strange behaviour of the Reapers had begun, she received a message via her omni-tool of an entirely different nature.

A message of consolation for the passing of Tali.

It wracked her heart to see all of the Reapers making haste for Rannoch, to salute the passing of someone Shepard hard loved.

There was a mortal man trapped with the burden of immortality and the promise to watch over peace.

Shepard had never reacted to the deaths of his other loved ones, other than a galaxy wide coordinated tribute to their passing, with all of the Reapers firing their primary weapons into the air and letting out a mournful wail.

A sound of a breaking man.  
It had left anyone within earshot of the sound feeling haunted for weeks.

Tali's death was clearly the final straw in this for Shepard.  
And Liara knew that would be the case.  
Each and every death of a former friend weighed heavy on her heart, so she could barely imagine how it felt for Shepard.

Asari had evolved to be very long-lived, so the mentality of outliving alien loved ones was inherited.  
Shepard, by all rights as a man, would have been dead by now as his Human mortality claimed him.

"High Councilor!" A voice called from within the closest crowd, denoting that her presence was now being noticed.

"What's happening? Are we going to war somewhere?"

The voice belonged to a young Human woman in a crisp Alliance uniform. Her ginger hair tied back professionally and her green eyes glistening in anticipation and fear.

"No, not at all," Liara assured the young woman and the now approaching swarm of people. "John Shepard has received news of the passing of someone whom he held very dear."

"Has he broken down?" Someone called.

"Is he abandoning his vigil?" Another added.

At which point Liara stood, her pearlescent gown flowing around her in the nearly natural feeling breeze, her arms raised in a placating gesture. "Many of your are too young to remember or even know the war. John Shepard fought harder and longer than everyone else, and eventually sacrificed himself to see the end of all wars. He would never abandon us-"

"-Then where's he going! We're now unprotected!" A panicked voice cried.

"Soon there will be a news story as a reporter links the events together, and the announcement will be for the passing of the Quarian High Councilor. Shepard is going to mourn her passing on Rannoch with a full show of what he has become." Liara explained calmly.

"While he is not currently protecting us, we have a fleet always in orbit of every council world. You are safe."

The eyes of the crowd widened in surprise at the news. It was hard for many to recognise Shepard as a man. Many saw him as a being that was all powerful and all good, with the underlying fear that he could turn on them.

It was not a fear for which Liara could blame them. Reaper technology was far more advanced than theirs, and John had refused to educate anyone in the ways of such destructive weaponry or mechanisms.

The reasoning behind the refusal was clear. That he didn't want organics to unnaturally receive such destructive capabilities. But the common perception of that was that he was keeping all of the cards for himself, and effectively keeping people under his thumb.

It was a ridiculous notion, one that he surely must have recognised, and chosen to ignore.

Liara suddenly decided to weave her way through the crowd toward the elevator. Knowing that if there was one way in which she could help Shepard, it would be pointing him to consultation with the only creatures who could possibly understand his plight.

The Leviathans.  
Mysterious and ancient, and according to themselves, even more advanced than the reapers in some ways.

Not that Shepard wouldn't know of their location, but a reminder from someone who cared never went astray.

"Set news feed updates from the following keywords, John Shepard, Reapers, Rannoch," Liara ordered to her omni-tool as she ducked past the last row of the crowd and into the elevator to the Tower.

It blinked green in affirmative to her order and the elevator shot upwards.

A small smile quirked at her aqua blue lips as the presidium quickly vanished beneath her.  
One of John's first little assignments on his first visit to the Citadel had been agreeing to help a Salarian scan the Keepers.

Apparently, the Keepers had trouble perfectly adapting the systems of the Citadel to so many different forms of life. A testament to the supposed difference of this cycles life forms learning to cooperate with one another, rather than have a single almost all powerful dominant race.

But the Asari, being the first to walk on the Citadel in this cycle, were long-lived and often very patient beings.  
So the Keepers had optimized the Citadel to suit not just their physical needs, but also their psychological comforts. As such, the elevators had always been incredibly slow.

Thanks to Shepards first altruistic offering to help on the Citadel, such systems had now been adapted, and the elevators shot to their destinations with lightning efficiency.

The terrible music, of course, had to stay, Liara mused, recalling a discussion she had with Shepard when she had taken office.

Her first public speech had finished with the joke that she would abolish the terrible music, and everyone expected her to make true of those words, despite them obviously being a joke.

Shepard had laughed from his holographic projection of himself and warned her that despite how terrible the music was, without it, the elevators would seem uncomfortably quiet.

She'd laughed along with him and replied that any uncomfortable silence was preferable to that horrid music.

So the system the broadcast the music into the elevators had been shut down.  
Within the space of a week, the public began calling for new and better music to be returned to the elevators.

It seemed like a good in-between solution.  
But while some loved the new music played, others hated it, so the obvious middle ground had been to laughably return the music to its former cringe-inducing glory.

' _Oh the joys of being a public leader,'_ Liara thought ironically to herself as the doors slid open and she hurried up toward the council chambers.

Of course, Shepard didn't need to deal with such things anymore.

But she was sure that he wished he could be dealing with such frivolous things rather than dealing with the same conflicting issues again and again. Knowing that the same conflicts would arise eternally.

Liara passed polite smiles and nods to those she passed, heading to the open forum council chamber.

Where the council had one chosen the place to be above the people, it had now been modified to more simply be a place for statues to commemorate those who had sacrificed themselves for peace.

And the once glassed off garden bellow had been opened up, and a flight of stairs from the public side ran down into it, where a large table was centered, flanked by fluorescent weeping trees.

Liara swept her way around the table and took her designated seat, momentarily ignoring the Human Councilor, who was watching her expectantly from his own seat to her left.

The familiar holographic console opened up before her awaiting fingers, and she typed out her message for John.

Requesting that when he had finished on Rannoch that he go visit the Leviathans to ask for personal guidance on the matter of eternal life.


End file.
